The project focuses on transforming interior spaces through the manipulation of light within that space. It’s an exploration and celebration of the incredible effect that colours and their perception have on our minds. Colour is an extremely powerful stimulant, capable of dramatically changing our mood and mindset. Exciting us. Calming us. Inspiring us.

The wallpapers developed for the Artists 21 exhibition by Hortense Duthilleux form the walls of the room. These printed materials remain unchanged throughout the experience. They are completely static. But whilst they remain constant in physical terms, changing the spectrum of light applied to them creates a magical impression on the viewer. The very thing they are looking at appears to transform in front of them. This is because shining different spectrums of light on the patterns reveals different patterns within the wallpaper.

The primary colours: cyan, magenta and yellow react to the red, green and blue color of the light. Some patterns disappear while others are revealed, creating new compositions. The walls appear to morph in front of the viewer’s very own eyes.

This type of experience has been described as dreamlike, mind blowing and uplifting. Inhabitants often can’t contain the immense natural joy they feel when the room around them begins to transform.

To illuminate the room, the installation will be using an RGB 40 watt LED bulb (developed by Sami Amin). Light can be controlled via Bluetooth through an Android app. This gives the user complete control over the different pure red, blue, green light sources, and hence complete control over the light combinations and subsequent transformations.

Having mastered these concepts, les Méchants is currently looking to develop and improve this project, working with a group of start-up architects and engineers to create a holistic and immersive structure called ‘Luz’, whereby explorations on colours and their reactions to light will surround the viewer entirely. When put within a festival display, ‘Luz’ will become a mesmerizing upheaval.

Catch out their installation Thursday, May 2nd from Noon-9PM

About Les Mechants:

Hortense Duthilleux is a screen printing artist working with color and optical shapes and pigments of textiles with particular attention to their reactions to lighting and reflections. Color for her is instability – in constant transformation – it’s never one but always a palette of shades which are offered to the viewer. It is this singularity that she is continuously trying to explore.

Taking inspiration from artists such as Chuck Close or Vasarely, the pigments and dyes are her first material. Trough the medium of silkscreen she declines the hue and the shades to investigate the combinations that are possible.

Hortense is interested in the optic and physics of light as a key element of perception and appearance of colors. Thanks to polychromatic LED, her patterns can be animated and become as dynamic as a projection.

Hortense is currently working with a lighting designer and a group of start-up architects and engineers to create a holistic and immersive structure whereby her explorations on colors and their reactions to light will surround the viewer entirely.